The subject matter of the present disclosure relates to the field of cellular fixed networks and, more specifically, to providing improved Quality of Service (QoS) over a terrestrial radio access network.
The rapid evolution of communication over wireless communication networks for mobile communications, such as but not limited to, 2G networks, etc., creates a demand for increasing bandwidth over cellular fixed networks. The demand for increasing the bandwidth of the cellular fixed network pushes more and more cellular network operators to add data manipulation equipment between central nodes, such as but not limited to base station controllers (BSC), and its associated cells, such as but not limited to base transceiver stations (BTS).
Common manipulation equipment is capable of intercepting the data traffic on both sides of a bearer that carries cellular data between a central node and a cell over the cellular fixed network, and aggregating data units and/or manipulating the data in order to reduce the number of bits that are transmitted over the associated bearer. On the other side of the bearer, mating manipulation equipment de-manipulates the manipulated data into the original data format and the de-manipulated data is transmitted toward its final destination. Exemplary manipulation equipment may aggregate data units, reduce padding bits, idle data frames, unused data frames etc. Manipulation methods themselves are not part of the present disclosure and shall thus not be described in detail here. Detailed information about manipulation methods can be obtained from many sources. For example, U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 11/194,918; 10/830,081; 11/408,418; and 11/464,204 disclose several types of manipulation equipments and methods.
Since manipulation equipment can reduce the volume of data over a bearer between a central node and a cell, the bearer associated with the manipulation equipment can carry more connections than a common bearer. Therefore, the central node and/or the cell can be configured as having two or more dummy bearers instead of the real one. Furthermore, common central nodes and/or cells have a mechanism that can control the bit-rate of the data that is created by a mobile telephone or cellular device in order to reduce the volume of the data over the network. For example, in a GSM fixed network, a BSC can change the bit-rate that is currently used by an adaptive multi-rate (AMR) codec for compressing the audio data to/from a cellular device. Such a mechanism may not be effective if the central node is configured as having more bearers than the real one.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system and method that can measure temporary load over a bearer that connects two nodes, such as a central node with a cell and change the bit-rate that is created by a source of data. Such a system can adapt the volume of the data to the capacity of a bearer and its associated manipulation equipment. Furthermore, such a system can lead a source of data, a cellular telephone or other cellular device for example, to change its data format in order to deliver a data format that can be manipulated more efficiently by the associated manipulation equipment.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system and method for leading a source of data to change its bit rate into another bit rate in order to match the load over a bearer and to improve the QoS and the utilization of the data manipulation equipment in reducing the number of bits that are transmitted over a cellular network.